Inground sprinkler heads are prone to becoming damaged from lawn mowers, walking traffic and vehicles. The undesirable impacts on the plastic head parts will often result in broken sprinkler heads that require repairs and often must be replaced. Such repairs and replacement of the sprinkler heads can be quite expensive on residential lawns that that have dozens of installed sprinkler heads. The problem is further compounded in commercial lawns and golf courses.
Another problem with sprinkler heads is that it can be expensive and time consuming to constantly trim unwanted vegetation such as grass and weeds from growing up around the sprinkler heads. The undesirable vegetation can result in obstructing the side spray from being emitted from the heads which limits the amount of ground cover to be sprayed from the sprinkler heads.
Often lawn maintenance workers will use mowers to try to cut the unwanted vegetation around the heads. However, the mowers can damage and destroy the sprinkler heads if they get too close. More often than not the mowers will not effectively cut the unwanted vegetation immediately around the sprinkler heads. Other types of popular tools have included edge trimmers and gas or electric power line trimmers. However, these tools can also easily damage or destroy the plastic parts on sprinkler heads. Another alternative is to have the lawn maintenance worker to physically pull the unwanted vegetation by hand. However, this technique can become quite expensive and time consuming per job.
Over the years various types of sprinkler head shields and guards have been proposed. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,772,118 to Fabiano describes a sprinkler head shield that requires the shield to be screwed to the base of the sprinkler head, which would be time consuming to attach as well as not be able to be used with all the different types of the sprinkler heads on the market. Also, this shield does not deter or prevent unwanted vegetation from growing up adjacent to the sprinkler heads.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,080,341 to Schumacher; Des. 256,386 to Bergland; U.S. Pat. No. 7,216,819 to Bernards and U.S. Pat. No. 7,946,507 to Gauthier, III each show shields having generally disc shaped configurations with central holes for fitting about a sprinkler head. However, these shields do not deter or prevent unwanted vegetation from growing up adjacent to the sprinkler heads.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,015,448 to Hurless and the product SPRINKLER SAVER® each show devices having portions that must be inserted into the ground or snap about the neck portions around the sprinkler heads. However, these types of guards can require extra labor to have portions inserted into the ground, and cannot universally work with all the different types of sprinkler heads on the marks. Also, these guards do not deter or prevent unwanted vegetation from growing up adjacent to the sprinkler heads.
Other types of prior art guards and shields use donuts that can be made of plastic and/or concrete. However, these guards and shields cannot universally work with all the different types of sprinkler heads on the market. Also, these guards do not deter or prevent unwanted vegetation from growing up adjacent to the sprinkler heads.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems with the prior art.